Book by CCU professor examines role of Native Americans in World War II

World War II and the American Indian, by
Coastal Carolina
University professor Kenneth Townsend, is the first full account of
Native American experiences in World War II, beginning with their
response to the world's drift toward war in the 1930s and the impact of
war on their lives. It reevaluates the role of the American Indian in
World War II, and examines how the war marked a significant turning
point in the identity and assimilation of Native Americans within the
mainstream of society.

Townsend, an associate professor of history, developed the idea
and wrote the first chapters of the book while he was in graduate
school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "I owe my
interest in World War II to my father, who was a veteran, and I have
been fascinated by Native American history since I gained an awareness
of Indian issues in the late 1960s," says Townsend. "This book allowed
me to blend the two interests and probe a relatively unexplored area of
American history."

World War II and the American Indian shows how New Deal policies
designed to preserve traditional Native American lifeways inadvertently
provided Indians the resources, training and services necessary for
assimilation in the postwar years. Included are interviews with Native
Americans who fought in Europe and the Pacific, those who resisted the
draft, and American Indian women who worked in defense industries on
the homefront.

Townsend joined the Coastal history faculty in 1989. He earned a
bachelor's degree in history and political science from the University
of North Carolina at Charlotte and a master's degree and Ph.D. in
American history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.